


(your blood, your bones, your voice) your ghost

by tiltingheartand



Category: Dollhouse
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-19
Updated: 2012-06-19
Packaged: 2017-11-08 02:01:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/437889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiltingheartand/pseuds/tiltingheartand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's starting to degrade.</p>
<p>(Whiskey's descent into madness.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	(your blood, your bones, your voice) your ghost

**Author's Note:**

> Written for immortality@LJ at the [Awesome Ladies Ficathon](http://ineffort.livejournal.com/199061.html?thread=3821717#t3821717),

She's starting to degrade.

It's kind of ridiculous to use that word on herself, on her _mind_ , and not the pipe under a sink. For example. It's so impersonal. But then, she supposes, she stopped being a real person and started being a thing long ago. Things degrade.

_The center cannot hold_ , the back of her mind finishes for her, and she can't help but laugh.

 

_(She goes somewhere else when she's playing, somewhere it's just her and her kit and the sounds of the rest of the band filtering in through her ears. It feels like she loses time whenever they go onstage, like she sits down and then barely a second later they're standing, thanking the audience, and stepping off._

_It's probably due at least in part to what used to be crippling stage fright, so for that she's grateful, but it also means that she never gets to see anyone else perform. Of course, by 'anyone else', she mostly means 'Lilah, who plays bass like it's the only thing worth doing in the world'. She watches videos of Lilah on YouTube when nobody's around to notice, but it's not the same._

_She wishes, sometimes, that Lilah would look at her the way she looks at her bass -- like she's perfect, like she's everything she could ever want.)_

 

Time passes. She finds the food stores, thank goodness, and the water. While she's looking she finds a bunch of paint and paper, starts doing that to pass the time.

She starts to hear their voices just about the same time she starts to realize that when she's not paying attention, everything she paints looks like November. It makes her feel sick, guilt pushing bile up into the back of her throat, and she wants to cry.

She burns the paintings, carefully, and starts playing music on Topher's computer system as loud as it'll go.

 

_(She's peeling potatoes into the sink for dinner when she feels a pair of arms slip around her waist, a warm body pressing up against her. She smiles, feels an identical expression pressed into her hair._ You're home early, _she says, tossing the cleaned potato into its pot and starting another._

__Bossman told me to take off _, Antonia says, swaying her hips side to side a little, moving them both._ Whatcha makin', Lilypad? __

__Food, _she says, deliberately, grinning when she hears Antonia snort._ I figured we should probably have some real food before we head out tonight. __

__Oh, can't we just stay in? _Antonia squeezes her a bit tighter, puts her chin down on Lily's shoulder._ There's nothing on, we have absolutely no errands to do, and tomorrow's Saturday. We could make a night of it, _she finishes, and bites down gently on the space between Lily's neck and shoulder._

__You were the one who volunteered us for this party, you know, _Lily says, concentrating on not peeling one of her fingers by accident._ How about we just postpone that idea for a day? __

__A day's better than a night, _Antonia says, and Lily can hear the smile on her face.)_

 

She dreams in gunshots, black-and-white, and when she wakes up it takes her longer and longer to remember who she is.

She sleeps everywhere, trying to find a place a little less stifling. (That's not even the word she wants, but she can no longer remember what she means. If she ever knew.)

Well. Almost everywhere.

She slips into November's pod one night, hoping against hope that this will help. She doesn't dream in gunshots, that night; instead she dreams of shadows, sunlit fields she knows in her heart are around there somewhere always just out of sight.

She knows who she is when she snaps her eyes open, but that person is very brittle, that person feels like if she breathes in too deeply she might shatter.

She climbs out of the pod, finds some duct tape and seals it shut.

It won't help.


End file.
